ntended as the places of sepulture for their
princes. At the death of members of the royal family, their bodies were
entombed in the vaults beneath; and the sovereign and his relatives
retired to mourn over the departed scion in the chambers above these
solemn abodes, screened by dark and silent groves from the public eye."
Another tradition devotes the edifices to a sect of priests, whose duty
it was to live in perfect seclusion, and offer expiatory sacrifices for
the royal dead who reposed in the vaults beneath.<45>

With all due respect to traditions, we think a much more reasonable
explanation can be given. One reason why Mitla has been regarded as such
an important place, is because it has been assumed that there were
no other ruins like it, especially in Mexico. This, according to Mr.
Bandelier, is a mistake. He examined one or two quite similar ruins in
the near vicinity, and at another place he found a group of ruins in
every way worthy of being compared to Mitla, but he was not able to
examine them. So we must either decide there were a number of these
"Sepulchral Palaces," or else adopt some simpler explanation. But still
stronger is the fact, that at the time of the conquest, Mitla was an
inhabited pueblo. We have the account of a monk who visited it in 1533.
He mentions in particular the ornamentation of the walls, the huge
doorways, and the hall with the pillars. It is extremely probable that
if it was devoted to any such purpose, some mention would have been
made of it. We think Mr. Bandelier is right when he concludes that these
structures are communal buildings, but little different from others.

As for the other ruins in Oaxaca, we will not stop longer to examine
them. At Guingola, in the southern part of the State, was found a
ruined settlement. The principal ruins were located on the summit of
a fortified hill, which, from a brief description, must have been much
like those we have already described.

We will now turn our attention to the Gulf-coast. The whole coast region
abounds in great numbers of ruins. It is in this section, however, that
tribes of people belonging to a different family than the Nahua tribes,
were living at no very distant time in the past. So it is not doubted
but that many of these ruined structures, perhaps the majority of them,
were the works of their hand. When Cortez landed on the coast, in the
neighborhood of Vera Cruz, he was received by the Totonacas. These
were a Nahu